Jolt Country

Drove to Chicago (800 miles) for a wedding last Thursday. Drove home (800 miles) on Sunday. Drove 300 miles to KC, MO today for work.

My butt is sore. And not for any good reasons.

Was the wedding worth the drive? You can be honest and direct with us Flack. They will never, ever know of this secret place.

I believe it was my father who once told me that my relatives will fight with anybody, and when not doing that, they practice against each other. That's very true. I think my overall non-combative/issue-avoidance/passive-aggressive personality was a result of watching my closest relatives fight to the point where some of them were not on speaking terms for decades. That's hard for a kid to watch and understand.

What volitility (not a word) exists at ground level withini my family gets multiplied by a thousand when alcohol is involved. At my cousin's wedding last year, which I missed, another one of my cousins popped his step-mom in the mouth, which led to his father punching him in the face, and by the time all was said and done, the rental car had been wrecked and at least three family members showed up for family photos with black eyes and/or fat lips.

Fortunately or unfortunately depending on how you look at it, no such excitement took place this time. So was it worth driving 1,600 miles to see my Aunt and Uncle take their sacred vows and join together in a beautiful, symbolic union? Of course not. Don't be ridiculous.

Really we went for two reasons: to be there in case something exciting DID happen, and also just to "make a showing".

Flack wrote:At my cousin's wedding last year, which I missed, another one of my cousins popped his step-mom in the mouth, which led to his father punching him in the face, and by the time all was said and done, the rental car had been wrecked and at least three family members showed up for family photos with black eyes and/or fat lips.

Fortunately or unfortunately depending on how you look at it, no such excitement took place this time.

"Son, you think that's excitement? You wanna talk about excitement, talk about a wedding where there's evidence of wild orgies, at least two divorces, suspicions of human sacrifice, and a luau so big that when the State Police tried to break it up, the crowd got so ugly - plus taking hostages - that the governor had to send in National Guard troops. When you've been to one of those kind of wedding parties, THEN you can talk about excitement."

Tdarcos wrote:"Son, you think that's excitement? You wanna talk about excitement, talk about a wedding where there's evidence of wild orgies, at least two divorces, suspicions of human sacrifice, and a luau so big that when the State Police tried to break it up, the crowd got so ugly - plus taking hostages - that the governor had to send in National Guard troops. When you've been to one of those kind of wedding parties, THEN you can talk about excitement."

Fail, motherfucker.

Got home a few minutes ago. My original plan was to sleep in until 8 or 9am, take my time, and mosey back to Oklahoma City. Instead I couldn't sleep, so after watching America's Funniest Home Videos from 5am-6am, I hopped in the truck and made the 300ish mile trip back in about 5 hours.

I have two more upcoming trips. In October I have to go to Minneapolis for a week. That's 800 miles, the same as Chicago from here (almost exactly), so that's a 12-hour drive. No biggie. The other is DC, which is a brutal drive that I swore I'd never do again. It's 1,350 miles, plus the meeting is the week of Labor Day, meaning I'd have to spend all of Labor Day weekend driving. That might be one where I just have to man up, wash down some Xanax with some Mike's Hard Lemonade, and hope for the best.

Holy Shit, is this for work? Is this work stuff? Look, flying is a fucking pain in the ass but don't make that drive. It sucks.

I have news as well -- the cheapest I can find a truck for a one-way rental is $565. It would cost about $300 to get Centipede shipped. What the fuck, you know? I will start a new thread for this.

Ice Cream Jonsey wrote:Holy Shit, is this for work? Is this work stuff? Look, flying is a fucking pain in the ass but don't make that drive. It sucks.

I have news as well -- the cheapest I can find a truck for a one-way rental is $565. It would cost about $300 to get Centipede shipped. What the fuck, you know? I will start a new thread for this.

You're in Colorado. Check out the web pages of U-Haul and Penske. I'm not sure if Penske does, but U-Haul routinely has offers where, for a severe discount, you can rent a truck from one area where there are too many trucks to a place where there are too few. For example, there might be a rate of $100 to take a truck from OKC to Las Vegas. If the numbers work out the cost of a couple bus tickets (Or one if either the pickup or dropoff point isn't too far) plus the lowered price of the truck might work.

Or, you drive to the dropoff point, find a place to park, take a bus to the pickup city, then pick up the truck, go get the machine, drive to your place, unload, then take the truck to the drive-off point, get your car and drive back.

Check out Upack. You can put the machine in a container - or the seller could - and they pick up and deliver; they claim it's cheaper than U-Haul.

Where is the console and where are you? Or how many miles is it round trip? I'll see what I can find out, if you want. If it requires packing can you trust the guy to do it? How big is the console, would it fit in a minivan if you stripped out the contents? (Of the minivan!)

If it would fit, rent a minivan local over the weekend at least a couple of weeks or so in advance, one example is Enterprise out of Colorado Springs, it's $128.00 for a 24-hour rental on a Saturday (August 28 as example).

Do you have or can you put a tow hitch on your car (or truck) and rent a U-Haul trailer? They're $20 or less per day, and do not have mileage charges. Examples, using Colorado Springs as the rental location: 5' x 8' closed cargo trailer is $18.95; if the console is too large to fit in a closed trailer, an open 4x7 utility trailer is $14.95; a 5'x9' open trailer with ramp is $24.95. Furniture Pads rent for $5 for 1/2 dozen. An appliance dolly is $10.

Since you will not need to leave the trailer somewhere, you can do a local rental, go pick up the console, and bring it back.

You're in Colorado.

You can't control me!

Check out Upack. You can put the machine in a container - or the seller could - and they pick up and deliver; they claim it's cheaper than U-Haul.

A bunch of sites want nothing to do with arcade machines, and hang up on me when I tell them what I want to do. I shipped a Marble Madness from South Carolina for around $300, if I remember correctly. Of course, I can't remember who I used. I'd have to scour my e-mail. But yeah, that's how I was thinking of handling all this.

Where is the console and where are you?

It is in Oklahoma City, and I'm in Denver. It is a CENTIPEDE. Tdarcos, please -- what is your take on the arcade game "Centipede"? Like it? Love it? Loathe it? Don't remember it?

Or how many miles is it round trip? I'll see what I can find out, if you want. If it requires packing can you trust the guy to do it? How big is the console, would it fit in a minivan if you stripped out the contents? (Of the minivan!)

It would fit in a minivan, but I am too stupid to figure out how to get the seats out. These games are just over 6' tall. Let's see, Centipede was an Atari game and they didn't fuck around with their luxoriously large cabs. I'll say it's 375 lbs.

Our very own Flack is the guy I'd be getting this from, so I trust him a fair degree. I committed to offering one of his books as a prize in the IF Comp this year, and I trust that he won't ban me from his on-line store for my general smugness, so I trust him a great deal.

.... Remember the agreement.......

There are a handful of businesses that will ship arcade cabinets. There are two types: those that require you to crate the games, and those that do not. Prices for the first group usually fall in the $100-$200 range, while those in the second usually cost around $300-$400.

For the former, you will need to get your arcade cabinet up on a crate and then pack it for transport. I suspect this would involve some sort of packing material, and a lot of plastic wrap. Depending on whether or not the shipper provides home pickup (many do not), you'll need to get this (now 500lb) lump of wood, electronics and plastic to the nearest shipping facility.

Good luck with all that.

The other guys, for $300-$400, will pick a cabinet up in your driveway, drive it across country, and drop it off in someone else's driveway. IF I were to ship a game, that's probably what I would do. The one I checked into (I'll have to dig up the name) charged $400 to ship 1 game anywhere in the country, and a 2nd game was free -- so really, if you have the need, 2 games was the way to go.

I sold a game to a guy once who picked it up in a minivan. Like you said, the seats were laid down and the cabinet fit, but barely. And, not to be all "Red Car Commandos" on you, but only a few of my games are 6' or less. I know because the shelf in the back of my arcade is at the 6' mark, and 90% of my games won't completely slide under it. Something I hadn't considered was that most minivans have a "lip" in the back, meaning that the cabinet drops down into the van a good 3-4". Not a problem when loading the cabinet, but I could see it being a pain in the ass when it's time to remove it.

There's also the great arcade debate over whether or not a cabinet should be transferred while lying down. I've done it both ways (standing up and lying down) and haven't had too many problems. The real issue is a lot of people rely on gravity to hold things in place, like coin doors, or PCBs, or sometimes monitors, so if you lie a cab down without checking it first ... "contents may shift." That's one reason I prefer using my Dad's trailer when moving games. It has a ramp, so you can just wheel games up on to it, strap them in place, and off you go. Getting a cab upright into the bed of a truck is typically worthy of a World's Funniest Video entry.

I'm driving to Las Vegas next week for VMWorld. I think I got registered for the Stan Lee meet and greet, which is horribly wasted on me.

The week after that I'll be in DC, but I'm (*sigh*) flying to that one.